


Perceptions

by dragonofdispair



Series: Roads [31]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2008-05-01
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2658713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sigh… a boy and his dog. Or rather, a warrior mech and his leader's pet decepticon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perceptions

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: lemme see... things i own: an antisocial laptop, some star wars action figures, a few (hundred) beanie babies, thirty coffee cups, a teapot, a cat... nope -- i still don't see transformers in that list anywhere.
> 
>  
> 
> warnings: cuteness. one very mild battle description. and transformer swearing throughout -- ironhide's in charge of the narrative and he has a potty mouth.

When something big and pointy and putting scratches in his pristine black paint job climbed on him in truck form, programming written over millennia of war had Ironhide transforming, grabbing it, and pointing an activated cannon at it before he'd even rebooted out of recharge. When his processors finally registered just what he was holding, his reaction was to say:

"Oh. It's you."

For there, dangling from his tail held securely in Ironhide's fist, was Scorponok. Who clicked cheekily at him and swatted his cannon with one claw-cannon. Ironhide, who like the other Autobots who'd first landed on Earth had learned to understand "Scorpon-go" (as Sam had named Scorponok's use of clicks and gestures to communicate), knew that was the equivalent of "I know you're not allowed to shoot me. So nyah!"

For a moment, Ironhide was tempted to shoot him anyway. But Prime'd have his transformation cogs if he did. He deactivated the cannon.

In his hand, Scorponok twisted up in a very familiar way. Ironhide dropped the little slagger before he could bite him. Again. On the ground, the stupid bug let out a static-y noise that approximated laughter. Ironhide wanted to step on him, but that was another thing Prime had explicitly forbidden, so he settled for glaring at the bug scuttling around his feet.

"What do you want, bug?"

He nearly did step on him anyway when Scorponok gently grasped a plate of armor on his leg and tugged, before crawling off in one direction. Then he repeated the process when Ironhide didn't move.

"No. Go bother Bumblebee."

Scorponok just made the scrape-buzz noise that had been the first sound to be translated from Scorpon-go to English -- no. (Also "yuck" but that was a matter of context.)

Ironhide ignored him and transformed, intending to go back into recharge. Behind him Scorponok made a high pitched whining noise. Most Autobots interpreted that as a mild crying sound. Ironhide knew it was a threat -- that the little slagger would go crying to Optimus, and get him in trouble for being mean to his precious pet Decepticon.

"Fine. I'll follow you." Ironhide started his engine and followed the bug across the stretch of desert. He could hear static-laughter over the growl of his engine.

"Worse than a spoiled, rotten sparkling," he muttered grouchily.

Scorponok led him over next to one of the sentry posts for the base. The human was obviously a rookie because he visibly goggled at the giant metal scorpion and the huge Topkick that drove itself.

It was just a human military base, out in the middle of nowhere, but the surrounding desert was used by the Autobots to transform and recharge in peace. So every soldier that was transferred to one of the anti-Decepticon squads was rotated to this base to get used to the concept of giant alien robots before being sent into battle against one. And because every soldier that was going to become part of the anti-Decepticon forces was rotated through here, this was where most of the training in anti-Decepticon tactics took place -- which the Autobots occasionally participated in.

And here, a stone's throw away from this sentry post, was where Scorponok had dug his burrow. Or, as the humans had nicknamed it, his "toybox".

Really, Ironhide couldn't figure out what the bug's obsession with collecting things was all about, but Prime allowed it -- Prime spoiled the fragger -- and this was where he stashed it all. No one was sure how big the burrow was; none of the Autobots could fit in there and if a human had been brave enough to find out, he or she hadn't bragged.

The bug went into the burrow. Ironhide pulled up and transformed. A clatter and an "Eeep!" made Ironhide look over at the sentry. The human was staring at the big black robot with wide eyes and had nearly dropped his gun. He shifted air through his cooling system to make a sigh-like sound most of the Autobots had picked up during their time on Earth, and radioed the main control room of the base -- probably interrupting whatever monotonous system checks were being run at the time.

"Who's bright idea was it to put a first-timer out by the bug's toybox? 'Cause I think he's gonna need back up before he goes inta processor lock." He didn't wait for a response.

After fragging forever, Scorponok emerged, tail first, dragging whatever he wanted to show Ironhide. Whose first thought was 'where the fragging Pit does he find this scrap?' There, clasped by the 'fingers' of his two claw-cannons was a curved metal disk. A fragging yellow metal disk. With the words 'just say no to drugs' printed in black in English on it.

A fragging Pit-spawned transformer-sized yellow Frisbee.

"No. I'm not playing with you. Find someone else."

Scrape-buzz.

"No way in the Pit, bug."

Bug made the whining noise again. Ironhide growled his engine. He wondered if Prime might believe he accidentally stepped on Scorponok. Decided Prime fragging well would not, and strode over to pick up the...yellow...Frisbee. Fragging yellow! Bumblebee and that fragger Sunstreaker might see appeal in the color yellow, but Ironhide did not. He gave the thing a half-sparked toss.

It landed barely twenty feet away and Scorponok gave Ironhide a dirty look and a scrape-buzz. This time it definitely meant "yuck" -- an expression of disgust at the pathetic throw.

"Might I remind you -- you wanted me to play, not the other way around."

Scorponok just dropped the Frisbee at his feet and looked at him expectantly. He sighed and picked it up. This time it went a couple hundred feet. The bug gleefully burrowed through the loose ground after it, then sprung out of the ground, maybe fifteen feet in the air, to knock the Frisbee off its flightpath.

Ironhide winced. He remembered battles where Scorponok had used that exact sneak attack to take mechs the size of Bumblebee and Jazz by surprise, then used his tail to pierce vital energon lines -- occasionally even a mech's spark chamber. He shuddered at the memories. It was an underhanded Decepticon sneak attack. Few had survived long enough to make it to a medic.

Scorponok had been built a Decepticon.

He turned and walked away -- he didn't think he'd be able to watch the bug to that again without shooting him. The Decepticon dropped the Frisbee where he'd been standing and scrambled after him with a perplexed churr.

When he caught up with the black mech, he went around to scuttle backwards in front of him and let out a chirr-whine-click sound. Ironhide stopped and looked at the sad and perplexed former-Decepticon drone.

"Nothin', bug." He sat on the ground. Fragging Pit! What was wrong with him? Granted he and Scorponok generally maintained a mutually antagonistic relationship, and they annoyed the living slag out of each other, but Ironhide thought he had more control than that.

When Scorponok had first defected, Ironhide had maintained his suspicion. The bug was a Decepticon -- a Decepticon assassin, and with his supposed defection he'd gotten into a perfect position to murder the Autobots while they recharged. Even -- especially! -- Optimus Prime. It had sent every bit of Ironhide's paranoia programming running full tilt. But Optimus had been convinced.

And honestly, it was hard to argue. Scorponok had tried to give Prime his command link -- had been pretty insistent too. If Prime had accepted, Scorponok would have been his slave, literally unable to disobey him or betray him in any way.

Then Starscream had returned with several other Decepticons in tow. Ironhide and the other Autobots had answered a distress call from Optimus, who'd been caught alone. They'd arrived to find Optimus pinned down and injured and Scorponok valiantly trying to fend off Blitzwing and two seekers.

Scorponok crept closer with a series of worried clicks and Ironhide reached over to run his fingertips along the seams and gaps in his armor. The scorpion craved touch with and intensity that baffled all the Autobots. Touch just didn't mean all that much to most transformers. Ironhide usually wasn't one of those that indulged the bug, but now it served to let Scorponok know he wasn't mad at him. And served to remind Ironhide that this critter beneath his fingers wasn't the enemy he'd been for so long.

Usually, due to his size, he would have been designated the one to take on Blitzwing, but he was also the only one with the firepower to snipe the seekers. So he went to guard the injured Optimus and keep the seekers busy, while Bumblebee and Ratchet double teamed the triplechanger in his tank form.

Ironhide had really been to busy to pay much attention to the others, but he'd heard from the other two Autobots that Scorponok had injured Blitzwing badly, helping to drive the big 'changer off.

What he remembered most clearly about that battle was that at one point a seeker -- he wasn't sure which -- had maneuvered in for a low strafing run and he hadn't seen it until it was too late to get a firing solution on the approaching jet. He'd been sure he was going to get slagged. Badly. Then at the last moment before the seeker fired, Scorponok had leaped out of the ground to latch on to the seeker and jam his tail into the jet's fuselage.

The seeker had lived -- the leap had been too high, the catch too precarious, the strike too awkward and the seeker's armor too thick for the strike to be fatal, or even to cause a serious injury. But as the scorpion had dropped back to the ground, the seeker had pulled out of his attack. Soon after, the last of the three Decepticons had been driven off.

Ironhide hadn't really been able to think of Scorponok as a Decepticon since.

So he just sat there for a couple of breems, trailing his fingers over the bug's armor, listening to him chirr in one of his most contented tones. He ran the image of the scorpion latching onto that seeker in his processor until he was sure the past would remain in the slagging past.

Then he stood up and looked down at the bug, who made a questioning noise that was entirely unlike any other noise he made.

"You wanted to play Frisbee, bug, so let's play." With that he walked back to where the (slagging yellow) Frisbee had been dropped, picked it up and threw it.

This time when Scorponok burst from the sand to knock the toy out of the air, Ironhide didn't see an attack and an injured, dieing comrade. He saw only an ally, having fun.

  
Epilogue...

  
Lt. Caskill didn't think the wide-eyed sentry was really at all alert enough to be doing much good. There had been a few who had forgotten how their guns worked the first time they saw a transformer in person. Hence the reason all soldiers who were to be part of an anti-Decepticon unit spent time at this base to get used to the Autobots. It looked like this Sergent was one of those.

Though Caskill couldn't really find it in himself to berate the inattentive Sergent. Someone had really screwed up to put a complete noob out by Scorponok's burrow.

Usually Scorponok was a good introduction to giant alien robots for the soldiers -- in a controlled situation. He was smaller, looked pretty alien, and didn't randomly change from an otherwise innocuous vehicle into a thirty or forty foot tall robot. Bumblebee was better, but the yellow 'bot related to humans better than the others in general. Scorponok was also a good reminder that just because all the Decepticons on Earth right now were big and generally had the subtlety of an anti-tank missile was not a reason to get confident.

Caskill grinned, remembering one training exercise with the Autobots. One over confident squad captain had thought he'd had Optimus Prime and the medic Ratchet pinned. And he had, but, true to normal intel's inability to tell if a Decepticon has a drone with him or not, the training mission's briefing hadn't accounted for Scorponok being with Prime at the time. And the captain had forgotten to watch behind him. It had taken Scorponok about ten seconds to completely disrupt the captain's careful plan and about three minutes for the Autobots to win the simulation after that. After, he'd raised a stink about the drone not being included in the briefing and gotten a very impressive dressing down.

Then Caskill sobered. He also remembered the lecture Ironhide and Prime had given on why there was never any complete intel on Decepticon drones.

But it really was a mistake to put a newbie out by Scorponok's burrow. Because no matter how much of a kick-ass first contact he could be, or how invaluable he was as a training opponent, Scorponok was just plain weird.

Case in point: the scene that currently held the poor Sergent transfixed with wide eyes and without any idea he even had a gun, much less how to use it. Scorponok had somehow managed to coerce Ironhide into playing Frisbee with him. With a bright yellow Frisbee. Where had he managed to find a bright yellow, transformer-sized Frisbee, anyway?

Caskill kicked a rock to announce his approach and sidled up to the poor Sergent. "It could be worse."

He whirled around and snapped off a fair salute -- probably taking refuge in the military protocol. He looked like he would have saluted a dog if it would help him impose a sense of normal on the situation. "Sir!"

The Lieutenant returned the salute. "At ease soldier. It could be worse."

"Sir. How?"

He looked the Sergent strait in the eyes, trying to convey just how serious he was being. "Scorponok -- that one there -- likes Christmas music. Use your imagination."

Sergent...Mattox, according to his name tag, just blinked at Caskill for a very long moment. Then he collapsed into a fit of hysterical laughter it looked like he really, really needed. Lt. Caskill left him too it.

  
fini


End file.
